Want to swap some DVD-R\'s?
 

Had a new PC for a couple of months now but only got round to using the DVD writer a couple of days ago.

Grabbed a box of 10 Imation 4.7 GB 120 minute DVD-R's from PC World at the weekend and just undid the wrapper from two discs, stuffed them in the drive to try and write to them and got the message back 'Can't write to disc because it's not blank' or words to that effect. :puzzled:

OK, RTFM time and it turns out that my DVD writer uses DVD+R's. Doh!!! Didn't know there was a difference. I've opened the box now and a couple of the disc wrappers so I can't take 'em back.

So now I have a fresh box of 10 unwritten DVD-R's (albeit a couple of wrappers undone) that are useless to me. So, if anybody uses these things and needs some more can you do me a favour and buy some equivalent DVD+R's instead. I'll swap 'em with mine and pay the postage.

Are you sure your writer is only for + media, if so thats very strange as most are - and + format with a few only - format.

It could be just a problem that the discs need formating, what software were you using and does it have a disc format option ?

For all future DVD/CD purchases I can highly recommend www.svp.co.uk

Yup, thought of the formatting thing, but here's the text quoted from the manual

Note: Not all PCs come with a DVD+RW/+R drive.
Before recording, make sure:

Disc you are recording to is a DVD+RW, DVD+R, CD-R or CD-RW disc, not a music, data, DVD-RAM, DVD-R or DVD-RW disc. The DVD+RW/+R drive can't record to DVD-R, DVD-RW or DVD-RAM discs. When recording, use DVDs that have a "+" in their name.

Jools,

Windows doesn't handle DVD+/-R disks in the same way it does blank CDRs, so you can't just bung a blank one in and drag'n'drop the files to it, then burn them.

You'll need some software which works with your DVD drive to burn a data disk if you want to store files - try something like Nero as this is pretty universal.

humm.. ok so it is a + only drive, problem could crop up when you try to read discs written on + depending on what you want to read them with, as not all drives ie stand alone DVD can accept + format,

personaly if you got the chance i would see if you could replace the drive with a +\- read write format drive.